


Interrogation of the Flame Emperor

by seasparks



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Spoilers for Black Eagles, Spoilers for Silver Snow, Spoilers for Verdant Wind, late-game spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 23:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasparks/pseuds/seasparks
Summary: An inevitable confrontation takes an unexpected turn.





	Interrogation of the Flame Emperor

Byleth stood above a defeated Edelgard, sword raised. They turned around to look at their friends who had come so far with them, and nodded. The message was clear: Byleth needed to be alone for this. They all filed out of the throne room, giving Byleth and Edelgard their privacy.

Edelgard coughed, spraying blood on the floor. "The path you must walk...lies over my gra—"

"Stop it!" Byleth shouted. "Just stop! Listen to yourself! You're so fixated on this one horrible idea lodged in your mind, but it doesn't need to be this way! There are other paths!"

The emperor smiled bitterly. "Oh? And what paths would those be?" Her voice chilled Byleth. This wasn't the Edelgard they knew five years ago. "The one where I'm your prisoner? The one where Thales and his ilk take me back?! No! If I am to fall, let it be by your hand!"

"Who says you have to fall? And if you do, why me? Why would you make me do this?" Byleth shouted. To their surprise, they were holding back tears.

"Because..." Edelgard's smile faltered, and a drop of blood—or, a tear of her own? no, impossible—rolled down her cheek. "Because I trust you to end this. And because...no." Her breath caught. "No, that is enough. I trust you. So, please..."

Byleth threw the Sword of the Creator to the ground. "Then why?! Why didn't you explain yourself? You had weeks, but you said _nothing_, you didn't even _attempt_ to reach out. That's not how trust works, E...Edelgard."

Her eyes narrowed. "You made up your mind in the holy tomb," she hissed. "You wouldn't have listened; more likely you would have killed me on sight."

Byleth took a step back, hurt more by the accusation than in the battle leading up to this. "Oh? And you know that how, exactly? Maybe the same way you knew I wouldn't join you in Dunmire? The same way you know that I'd kill you right here and now if you asked politely? You must have known me better than that, at least back then, so why?" Their voice cracked with emotion. "Why lie to yourself? Why keep lying to yourself all these years?"

"But you...I saw it in your eyes, my—" She caught the endearment before it could pass her lips. "I saw your hatred, your resolve to kill me. Don't pretend like you would have lis—ack!" She screamed as Byleth grabbed her armor and hoisted her up to stare them in the face.

"Then tell me," Byleth growled. "Tell me what you see in my eyes now."

Edelgard regained her composure and stared coolly back. "The same things I saw those other two times. Anger, hatred...are you doing this just to torture me? To break me? Ha. I am already broken; you should know that. First by my uncle as a child, and now...by myself, I suppose. All this power, just to show my uncle that I don't need his help to destroy myself. How fitting."

Byleth set Edelgard gently back on the floor and turned away. "El..."

Edelgard's eyes lit up with rage. "How _dare _you! You do not get to call me that! Not now, not ever again!"

Byleth shook their head. "You really do think you know everything, don't you?" they asked, their voice softening. "But...you should also know me better than that. I know I can be hard to read, but is it really so hard to tell how close I am to crying? Maybe in the tomb I did hate you, just for a moment. You made me fight you, after all. But after you left, I waited for you to return, to explain yourself without Rhea looming over us. You were all I could think about for those two weeks, El, but you never even tried to reach out. El, I...do you know what I was doing, those five years?"

"Sleeping, from what I have been told."

"That's only part true. I could have returned sooner, but I was terrified of what I would see. I didn't want to face a world without you, nor could I face in a world where I would have to fight you again. So I slept."

Edelgard stared at Byleth in silence. "My...my teacher, I..." she eventually managed. "I don't know what to say."

Byleth turned back to face her and took a step closer. "Do you still believe in your vision for Fódlan?" She nodded. "Do you still plan to turn on those monsters who stole your life from you after you've seen this through?" Another nod. "Are you willing to trust me with what you know and work together toward a brighter future?" Nod. "And...do you still love me?" A nod, then a panicked expression.

"What! No! Professor, you tricked—" She looked up at Byleth. "Professor, you're...smiling? Why?"

Byleth reached out to Edelgard. "Come with me, El. We need you. Fódlan needs you. I...I love you too." Edelgard took their hand, and they pulled her up into a tight embrace, finally letting go the tears they had been holding back. "Thank you, El, thank you, I missed you so much," they murmured into her ear. "I never stopped believing in you, El, never stopped loving you, not once. I'm so sorry I couldn't be by your side this whole time; it's my fault you had to rely on _them_ so much. You can trust me with anything, El, just please don't shut me out like that again."

Edelgard had spent a lifetime building up her emotional armor. Since childhood she knew that to achieve her goals her will needed to be stronger than steel, stronger even than silver. She had thought that the part of her able to cry—the part of her responsible for her feelings toward Byleth—had died five years ago, in the holy tomb. But with those words, Byleth shattered the remnant of her armor and brought back that bundle of emotions she had buried deep within herself.

Edelgard fell into Byleth's arms, shaking and sobbing and unable to speak. The reunited lovers sank to the floor, weeping, and held on to one another as tight as they could, for as long as they could. Tonight, there would be questions, and tomorrow, plans would be made, but for now, the world could wait: they had each other again, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a alternate take on a late-game cutscene that completely broke our heart even before we had played Edelgard's route. We've seen several people observe that Edelgard is clearly in love with Byleth regardless of route, and our extremely gay brain took that and ran with it.
> 
> Is this outcome practical, lore-wise? Probably not. Does giving Edelgard happiness bring a smile to our face and mend our heart somewhat? Absolutely; hopefully it does for some of you, too. Now that we've gotten this out of our system (ha), we can return to working on our other, longer Edeleth fic.
> 
> We write f!Byleth as, in their own hypothetical words, a female enby. This is what we immediately & irrevocably read them as, and conveniently it's also how we'd describe our own gender most of the time. Readers of our works are encouraged to project their own genders onto them, if applicable; it just felt important to justify the choice of f/f tag here.


End file.
